Oct. 17, 2006
Katherine Trinidad
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-3749
James Hartsfield
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
MEDIA ADVISORY: M06-163
CHICAGO NATIVE TO DISCUSS ROLE ON NASA'S NEXT SHUTTLE FLIGHT
Joan Higginbotham, a NASA astronaut who will fly aboard the Space
Shuttle Discovery in December, will be available for interviews by
satellite from 7:15 to 9 a.m. EDT on Friday, Oct. 20.
To participate in the interviews, media should contact Stephanie Stoll
at 281-483-9071 or by pager at 713-508-0581 by 5 p.m. EDT, Thursday,
Oct. 19.
Higginbotham will be making her first spaceflight aboard Discovery on
STS-116, an 11-day mission to the International Space Station to
rearrange the complex's power and cooling systems. During the flight,
Higginbotham will operate the station's robotic arm, oversee
experiments and act as the primary coordinator of cargo transfer
between the shuttle and station.
The systems' changes will bring online electricity generated by a
second giant set of solar panels added to the station during a
September shuttle flight. The changes will almost double the
electrical power available to the station's systems. Discovery also
will bring a new crew member to the station to begin a six-month stay
and bring home a station resident who has been in orbit since July.
Higginbotham was born and raised in Chicago, and she received a
bachelor's degree from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale,
Ill. She also has two master's degrees from the Florida Institute of
Technology, Melbourne, Fla. Before her selection as an astronaut in
1996, Higginbotham spent nine years working at NASA's Kennedy Space
Center, Florida, overseeing various stages of preparing shuttles for
launch.
Higginbotham will be joined aboard Discovery by STS-116 Commander Mark
Polansky, Pilot Bill Oefelein and mission specialists Bob Curbeam,
Nick Patrick, Suni Williams and Christer Fuglesang, a European Space
Agency astronaut. Williams will remain aboard the station for six
months. European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter, currently
aboard the station, will return to Earth on Discovery.
For Higginbotham's biographical information, visit:
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/higginbo.html
Higginbotham's interviews will be carried live on the NASA TV analog
satellite AMC-6, at 72 degrees west longitude; transponder 5C, 3800
MHz, vertical polarization, with audio at 6.8 MHz. B-roll video of
her training for the mission will air at 6:30 a.m. EDT. For NASA TV
downlink, schedules and streaming video information, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/ntv
For more information about STS-116 and its crew, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle
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